The Oz Chronicles
by BloodNocturne
Summary: It's been six years since the town of Sunnydale, CA collapsed into a crater. What's a werewolf to do, when he still can't get a certain red-headed witch off of his mind... or out of his heart? A series of 100 words for 1000 word ficlets, told in Oz's POV
1. Raspberries

**Summary:** Turn a corner and there you are

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**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· RASPBERRIES** **·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊·**

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She smells so sweet. The last few years I've traveled to some pretty far-off places, each filled with wonderful scents and bursting with every colour imaginable; enough to give a man pause, allowing him to contemplate putting down roots. I've seen a lot of things and met a lot of people… but none like my Willow.

Willow Danielle Rosenberg is poetry to me. Her soft, milky skin… her rich, vibrant hair… her marbled, green-blue eyes… my beautiful girl soars past all of those colours I just talked about. She explodes with life… with light… and every time I see a sunset over tropical waters, I am reminded of her; all blazing colours, honey orchids and spicy coconut.

Right now, I'm doing a favour for Buffy since everyone seems to be stretched thin with all kinds activities since Sunnydale imploded. She asked me to pick up a new slayer and even though I was supposed to be heading out to San Diego to pick up Devon, how could I refuse when I found out that I'd be going to Istanbul?

And just like she predicted, we could turn a corner here and not be surprised at running into each other.

I have to admit though, I said OK to Buffy's favour on the off-chance that I could run into my beautiful girl. I know, in reality, the chances of that happening are probably more than a million to one, but still… a guy can always hope, right?

And now here we are, staring at each other and all my words are gone. She's robbed me of thought, of words and of air as I breathe deeply and am immersed in the smell of Willow.

"And here you are," her voice exactly as I remembered it. Soft and girlish and a little bit breathy and her nose crinkles a bit as she smiles at me.

_God, I love that little crinkle._

"Yes, I am. And you. You're here too." I can't help but feel ridiculous, stating the obvious like that, but I've already told you, I'm lost for words so I hope you're not too disappointed in my lack of articulacy.

"What are you doing here… I mean not that you're not supposed to be here or anything be-because you can be anywhere at all if you wanted, including here and…"

She's nervous. She's so incredibly smart; so much so that everyone around her should be in constant awe, much in the way that I am, but in spite of her intelligence, she's insecure and she always babbles when her insecurity catches her unaware.

"…and you're supposed to stop me when I do that." She pouts at me and I'm tempted to kiss her until we're both senseless.

"I still like it when you do that."

She smiles then, her whole face lighting up and it's just for me; she glows just for me and again, temptation is whispering in my ear and turning my stomach upside down.

I mean, you wouldn't know that I have butterflies in my stomach just by looking at me because hey! I'm Oz.

But Willow throws me. She is the only one, ever, in my life that has ever been able to turn me inside out.

Much like she is doing right at this moment when she pitches herself into my arms, her sinuous form pressed against me as she hugs me tight, her breath tickling across my throat as she buries her face in my neck and I want to laugh hysterically at the sheer joy of her being in my arms again.

Instead, I hug her just as tightly, burying my face in her hair and breathe deeply, unable to stop the grin spreading across my face. She smells like warm raspberries and steamy coconut mixed with a little bit of a spicy floral and a hint of honey and the underlying scent of simply Willow and together it's rich and sultry, so much so that I can actually taste it and suddenly I'm starving and I'm intoxicated; drunk on the perfume of the girl in my arms.

We stood there, wrapped around each other for minutes… days… forever possibly because with Will, time is a relative term and when she pulled back, allowing air to move between us, it was too soon.

Looking at me, she smiles and I can see the question in her eyes.

"I'm here as a favor to Buffy."

"She sent you to pick up the new slayer?"

"U.S. Consulate? Her father works for the Embassy or something like that?"

"Yeah. A seer in the Coven in Devon alerted us and Giles said he couldn't get ahold of Buffy so I came out here to pick her up. He would have come himself, but with Anya coming back and then almost getting killed again, he wasn't too fond of the idea of leaving her alone just yet."

"Ah."

"You don't seem very surprised about Anya. Did Buffy fill you in on everything that happened in Sunnydale?"

"A little bit, but that's not why I'm not surprised. It's just the people in our group aren't your typical, garden-variety homo-sapiens. Buffy has died a few times and lived to tell about it, ya know?"

She smiles at me again, and that little crinkle in her nose mocks me, daring me to kiss it smooth.

"What time is your flight back to the States?"

"Last flight out in a couple of hours," and suddenly my stomach feels like I just ingested an anvil.

"Mine too!" she says, her eyes wide with excitement and just as suddenly as that anvil appeared, it dissolves into nothingness. "Maybe we could sit together on the plane and catch up?" she asks, her tone hopeful.

I don't think I've ever wanted anything more, other than the girl herself.

A breeze tickles my nose with the scent of raspberries and Willow and I can't stop grinning as I tell her, "I don't think I've ever wanted anything more."

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**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· FINIS** **·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· **

Thank you for reading.

_Ruari_


	2. Home

**Summary:** Willow missed Oz as much as he missed her.

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**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· HOME ·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· **

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The first thing I'm aware of is the lack of warmth. After being so long without it, you would think that I'd be used to it by now.

With Willow, it's different. With Willow it's like no time has passed at all but at the same time, it seems like forever. With Willow, it's like coming home.

The second thing I'm aware of is the smell of pancakes.

That's my Will. If she's not buried in a book, she's busy in the kitchen. It's nice to know some things haven't changed.

My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven't eaten since lunch the day before. Dinner was spent talking; unable to bear a single moment away from her. I've already spent what seems like a lifetime wandering; a hundred nomadic years and lost each time I left her before. I've since decided that I won't ever leave her again. Even now, I feel like I'm about to crawl out of my skin, she's so far away.

Rolling out of bed, I look down at my clothes which are hopelessly wrinkled. Then the ac kicks on and the burst of air that rushes out of the vent above me carries the scent of heat and oil and pancakes and Willow and it drives straight through me to the apex of my thighs and suddenly I no longer care that my pants are crumpled. I need to be near her.

As soon as I walk out of the bedroom, I see her and my legs seem to forget that we were in the process of walking as they stop and I blatantly stare. Her hair is wet; the dampness of it dulling the blazing sunset colour to a rich cinnamon. Her face is bare of makeup and I can smell some raspberry-coconut concoction that I'm assuming is her body lotion since I could smell it on her last night when she buried herself in my more than willing arms. The sunlight coming in through the windows seems to make her glow, and she has never looked more beautiful to me than she does in this moment. Standing there at the stove poking at pancakes with a spatula, she is wearing my button-up from last night and not much else from what I can tell as her smooth legs are bare all the way to her toes from the hem of my shirt (which falls mid-thigh on her) and another shock goes through me and my crinkled pants feel a bit tighter than usual.

Then she turns, finding me standing here staring and her beautiful marbled eyes lock with mine and her cheeks stain with the faintest pink blush. Then she looks down noticing that my loose pants aren't very loose and when she looks back up at me, she smiles, a small, sweet smile as the blush fades from her cheeks; her eyes confident and knowing and the wolf inside me stirs. Reaching out, she shuts off the stove without looking at it, her eyes still locked with mine and the next thing I know she is walking towards me and my legs suddenly seem to remember how to work and I walk a few paces to meet her by a rounded table already set for breakfast and then I can't think anymore.

All I can see… all I can smell… all I can taste is Willow and she is kissing me, almost desperately and I feel like I've just come out of the desert after weeks without water; her lips are the only thing that can quench my thirst and I'm ravaging her mouth, wanting to drown myself in her kisses.

_Willow. My Willow._

Her hands are all over, everywhere at once while mine are content being buried in her hair in either side of her face. Delving under the hem of my t-shirt, her fingertips trace over my ribcage, moving higher until my shirt is crammed beneath my armpits and she lays her palms flat against my pecs, lightly brushing them back and forth over my nipples and still I can't stop kissing her.

I've missed this; this losing of myself before her only to find myself again inside of her and she has no idea what she does to me.

Her teeth sink into my bottom lip, biting firmly before pulling it into her mouth and sucking on it lightly and another bolt goes through my gut and into my groin and I'm so hard by this time I'm in danger of passing out from such a significant reversal of blood-flow.

She pulls her head back, her breath coming in ragged little pants as she leans forward, pressing kisses all along my jaw up to the sensitive spot just beneath my ear and her tongue flicks out against it before her teeth sink lightly into my earlobe and I'm not close enough; I need more. I need to be closer and I step forward, pressing into her and trapping her between me and the table pressing into the soft globes of her ass.

I can smell her arousal and its all I can do to keep from throwing her on top of the table and taking her like an animal; like the animal I am inside; wanting to just bury myself inside her warmth and drive into her over and over and over until the aching stops.

She pulls back again, wiggling, her hands moving down, unbuttoning my pants as the zipper slides open and her feet come up and I realize she is sitting on the table and she uses them to help shove my pants down around my thighs. Then her hands are reaching again, one grabbing my ass and pulling me closer while the other wraps around me and guides my throbbing hardness to her and she is pulling at me, gliding me into her warmth until I'm buried deep within her body and all I can feel is Willow.

And it feels like coming home.

**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· FINIS** **·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· **

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Thank you for reading.

_Ruari_


	3. Shoulders

**Summary:** The wolf isn't always the one to react... sometimes it's the man

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**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· SHOULDERS** **·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊·**

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It's been 3 days since I've found my Willow again. The first was spent talking, mostly about catching up on vanquished evils and new slayers and the hows and whys of Buffy's relationship with the deader-than-usual Spike. The second day was spent mostly in bed, pretending to not be home when friends came calling and impromptu trips to the kitchen for food and water before returning to the bedroom to catch up some more. I didn't intend to sleep with her yet as I know there is so much between us that we need to talk about yet, but honestly, I don't regret a bit of it. We needed each other more in those moments and tabletop sex was definitely of the good. Afterwards we just spent time being wrapped around each other under the blankets and in spite of the lack of food and sleep of the previous days, I felt more alive and energetic than I ever have before and when we fell asleep last night, still wrapped around each other, it was the first time in years that I was able to sleep the whole night through.

Today though—today I head out to San Diego to pick up Devon like I was supposed to before my impromptu Istanbul trip.

Willow doesn't look very happy and she rolls over, away from me and it hurts, but I can't blame her for it. I know she associates Devon with Dingoes and Dingoes with Veruca and Veruca for Willow, means a whole lot of pain.

We need to talk about it. Truthfully, I'm not wanting to for a whole lot of reasons, one of them being that I'm not proud of what happened between Veruca and I; of almost destroying the only girl I've ever loved. Mostly, I don't want to talk about it because I'm afraid all of those feelings will become real to her again and I'll lose her once more. I've walked away from her twice now and it was the hardest things I've ever done but I can tell you for certain, if Willow walked away from me, I wouldn't survive it because even though I was the one that walked away before, she endeavored because she is just that much stronger than me.

But I know we have to have 'the talk'. Its years past due and I owe her at least that much in spite of my fear of losing her. Even when I came back the first time, Will and I talked all night, barely touching on what my leaving did to her. I know that it devastated her and she knows that I know, but my imagining what it was like is not the same as hearing first hand from the girl herself.

There is so much different about Willow now but at the same time, she is still the same quirky, sweet girl that I fell for in high school. I know her better than anyone, including Buffy and Xander because there were parts of her that she kept only for me. The parts that I don't know about yet, I can only guess at but even then, nothing she can tell me will make me feel any differently than how I feel about her now—how I've always felt about her, even before that fateful day I offered her canapés.

I stare at her back, the line from her neck to the curve of her shoulder inciting me—inspiring me to pick up a camera, wanting to shoot her from every angle so she could see for herself just how amazingly beautiful she is. Instead I give in to the way her smooth, creamy skin beckons, begging to be touched and I curl myself around her body and whisper in her ear, "Come with me."

She rolls in my arms, her eyes uncertain as they search mine and I plead with her a bit.

"Please?" and the dullness that seeped into her eyes at my announcement of my San Diego trip is lifted and everything is right in my world once more.

We still need to talk, I know and maybe it's selfish of me, putting it off, but this trip will bide me some time so I can prepare myself for the possibility that I just might lose this incredible woman in my arms.

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The plane ride was spent napping; cuddled close to each other with the armrest between us raised. The trip from the airport was just as uneventful; just two people laughing and talking about everything and nothing and simply enjoying being together in our search for sustenance that didn't involve bland airport food which is how we got here—Shlotzky's Deli.

Leaving her at the table, I went to pick up our order, gathering spoons, crackers, napkins and the like and when I turned around there were two guys standing over the table talking to Will. The look on her face immediately brought my hackles up and I strode over the table quickly, hearing the taller one exclaim "You're that lezbo from The Bronze back in Sunnydale!"

She stood up just as I got to the table, stepping between them and setting the tray down, my blood already on a slow simmer.

"You know these guys," I gestured with a toss of my head, not taking my eyes off Willow.

"Sort of. These guys were around when Amy came back and wouldn't take no for an answer."

Turning to look at the guys behind me, I could feel my gut knotting up at the sneering looks on their faces.

"Let's just go Oz, please?" she asks, bending to pick up her purse when the taller one reaches out, grabbing her shoulder.

"Hey, what's your hurry, Ellen?" and she winces, muttering ow under her breath as she jerks away and that was all it took and my fist connects solidly with his jaw, sending him flying backwards over the table behind him.

"Don't touch her again."

**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· FINIS ·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· **

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Thank you for reading.

_Ruari_


	4. Confessions

**Summary:** Oz is a bit surprised at what Willow admits to

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**·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊· CONFESSIONS** **·◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊×◊·**

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I'm not a violent guy. I mean back in the day, I used to help out on patrol but even then, it was mostly fighting with crosses and holy water with a crossbow mostly for the threat rather than actual use.

I don't dig violence although I do understand that in the world we live in, too often, violence is needed.

Even with the wolf inside me, the human part of me would rather avoid violence if possible while the wolf part of me hungers for it, but twice now, my human half struck out without benefit of the wolf.

Once, I killed someone; a human-werewolf hybrid just like me. I struck out at her for threatening to hurt Willow and even though I changed not long after, it was still my human half that was in control when.

The second time happened a few minutes ago when I socked that dumbass in the deli. The manager came over quickly and after explaining what happened, the guys were thrown out with threats of calling the cops but I knew the real reason why they left in a hurry. The shop was alive with the scents of simmering soups and fresh cuts of meat, warm baked bread and fear; they were afraid, just as they should have been and unbeknownst to me, I was still growling low and dark and deep in my throat, the touch of Willow's hand the only thing to soothe both man and beast.

As we sat down to eat, I worried that I might have upset her, her silence the past few minutes seeming to stretch into an eternity. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was looking at me out of the corners of hers, and the anxiety settled deeper into the pit of my stomach. Finally, her nature got the better of her and she turned to look at me.

"You were growling!" and my anxiety lifted when her grin spread from ear to ear, her eyes shining and I couldn't help but smile back at her.

"Yeah. That happens sometimes."

Blushing, she ducked her head for a moment, taking a sip of her drink before looking at me beneath her lashes, her voice softer; more breathy.

"I think it's kind of sexy."

Overcome with the sudden need to kiss her, I lean over, pressing my lips to her temple before whispering in her ear, "Then I'll make sure to do it around you more often." And her cheeks are stained as pink as the raspberry soda she was sipping.

"You defended me to that jerk that was all grabby with the hands." She seemed almost surprised and I couldn't really blame her. She's only seen me get violent once before, and I've already told you how that turned out.

"He hurt you," I said matter of factly.

"You do know that I could have defended myself though, right?" she asked, turning to look at me once more.

"I do. I'm sorry if my hitting him bothered you, Will. I just—"

"It's ok. I mean I don't want you to go around beating everyone up all the time or anything… but it was kind of nice, being defended," and she smiled softly at me before leaning over and kissing me on my nose; my heart flip-flopping in my chest at the tenderness in her marbled eyes.

"Check. No more beating up people unless it's ok with you first."

I watched her as she opened her packets of crackers, taking out two and crushing them up on top of her chicken soup. Her cracker limit was four from what I remembered and I wasn't disappointed to find that that little habit of hers still hadn't changed as she added two more before stirring the broken bits around, mixing them in along with the chunks of carrot and celery and various other ingredients of her soup before taking a bite.

We ate in easy silence for a bit, she with her cup of soup and half a BLT and me with my rare roast beef on wheat with horseradish mayo and it felt normal, comforting, as if we had been doing this our whole lives rather than just finding each other again after three years.

Three years. God, has it really been three years? Sometimes it seemed as if I had only left her in the other room. Other times it felt more like three life lifetimes.

After most of our lunch was consumed, she turned to me once more, her eyes becoming more serious.

"Oz? Have you ever thought about maybe getting in touch with the wolf inside of you, like maybe learning how to work with it and tame it rather than constantly trying to control it?"

"I've thought about it. There was this Shaman in North Dakota last year who talked about how it could be done. Some sort of spirit-walk kind of thing where he would go into some sort of meditative deep trance and enter the mind of the other guy and help them get in touch with their inner animal. All very mind-trippy."

"Oh! Oh! I could do it! I could help you! I had to do something like that with Buffy last year. Remember when I told you about the Hell-God, Glory? Well before Buffy did the big leap thing, when Dawn was first kidnapped, Buffy went catatonic and I had to do a mind-meld when I went inside of her to help bring her back to reality."

"Well aren't you versatile-girl," and she grinned at me, her smile bordering on temptress as her eyebrow quirked upwards.

"You have no idea." And I felt the heat from her stare shoot straight to the pit of my stomach. Unfortunately, Devon chose that moment to make his presence known.

"Oz, man, we are up shit's creek! Your van bottomed out, and I mean that literally, on the way over here. Oh! Hey Willow. It's been awhile."

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Thank you for reading._  
_

_Ruari_**  
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